South Maitland Railways was formed by an agreement signed in 1918 between the East Greta and the Aberdare coal mining companies to combine their railway interests in the Maitland area.
The resulting SMR rail network can thus trace its roots back to East Greta Railways’ rail operation which commenced between East Greta No.1 Colliery and East Greta Junction back in 1893. SMR continued to grow over the next 70 years into an extensive rail network stretching between its maintenance works at East Greta Junction and many of the coal mines located to the south-west in the South Maitland Coalfields.
The coal was hauled by a variety of SMR owned steam locomotives from the coal mines to East Greta Junction exchange siding where NSWGR locomotives took over for the short trip down to Hexham or Newcastle. In peak periods under steam, East Greta Junction could see as many as 65 coal train movements, 16 local passenger and 2 express passenger trains on both down and up lines in a 24 hour period. To cater for these movements, the line was progressively duplicated from East Greta Junction through to Cessnock.
A downturn in the coal industry in the 1980’s and cost reduction drives by SMR saw all steam operations on SMR suddenly withdrawn on June 10th 1983, and thereafter all coal traffic was handled by the State Rail Authority (subsequently Freight Corp) diesel locomotive and rolling stock. Today, the majority of the SMR network has been abandoned as a result of mine closures, the passenger services and expresses have long ceased, and Pelton, renamed Southlands, provides the only coal traffic for the line. Peloton coal trains nowadays are usually rakes of 38 NHTF wagons, representing a trailing load of almost 3000 toned loaded and hauled by quad 48/PL Class locomotives.
This video traces the operation of these coal trains in the time span 1992-2000, empty from Port Waratah to Pelton, and full on the return journey. A small 2007 addendum has been added to cover PL Class operation in addition to the multi-livery 48 Class, other locomotives seen on the Sandgate to Maitland ‘raceway’ include 90, 82, 82, PL Class diesel-electrics and Newcastle’s suburban rail cars.
Approximate run time: 74 minutes.